


His Girls

by Brinny



Series: Pink Tutus and Hellhounds [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Has Abandonment Issues, F/M, Family Feels, Hurt Dean Winchester, Kid Fic, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 13:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14237901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinny/pseuds/Brinny
Summary: Driving over state lines with a teething baby is not something Jo recommends. The car windows are rolled down an inch or two and warm air hits her face, but the sky is getting dark and threatens rain. She finds some Springsteen on the radio and Robin lets out a loud and shrieking scream.Only three hundred miles to go.She can’t stop thinking about Dean dying.Jo doesn’t recommend getting involved with hunters either.





	His Girls

Dean walks into the Roadhouse and it feels like he hasn’t been back in months. He was actually here sometime last week, but out on the road the days seem to blend and run together.

He and Sam drove almost nonstop from Minnesota to Nebraska and they’re both kind of exhausted. Rolling his shoulder, Dean tries to stretch out the tired and tight muscles, and he can hear Sam pull and pop at his own joints, everything settling with a loud and hard crunch of shifting cartilage.

“Dude, that’s sick,” Dean says.

Sam only shrugs and with another crack of his elbow, lets the door shut loudly behind him. A few hunters look up with low grunts and angry mouths. One old guy, who’s sitting by the door, sneers at them from beneath a crusty patch of gauze taped over one eye. Dean alerts Sam with a tap of his hand to Sam’s gut and his brother gives a quick nod in apology. Dean does the same and the guy goes back to his drink.

“Man. I need a beer.” 

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “Yeah, me too.” He grabs at Dean’s elbow and pulls him toward the counter. “C’mon.” 

Dean stills a bit when sees Jo at the end of the bar. She has the baby at her hip and a stiff and frozen washcloth is tucked between two of her fingers. She looks tired. Really tired. Like a weary, sort of bone-tired, as if she was the one out all night fighting with spirits, with her hair tied back in a messy ponytail and a large and wet patch of spit staining her shirt where Robin is half-resting her mouth. But even through all of that, Jo just happily smiles back at him.

“Hey, stranger.” 

Something warm spreads from the pit of Dean’s belly to his knees. It happens whenever he sees her with the baby and he still hasn’t figured out if it’s panic or love or fear; or if panic and fear are sort of the same thing; or if he’s just being an idiot. So, he just grins instead, his lips stretching too wide over his teeth as he walks over to her. It almost feels like he’s playing house.

“It’s my girls.”

He quickly presses a kiss to Jo’s forehead and then tucks his thumb behind her ear, rubbing uneven circles on her skin. Jo is already warm to the touch and he can feel her flush even hotter when his palm easily rests against her neck. He kind of loves that he does that to her. 

With another grin, he moves his hand to touch Jo’s chin with his knuckle and then makes a quick, funny face at Robin, who stares back at him with wide eyes. Ellen loudly clears her throat and Dean swallows.

“And Ellen. Hey, Ellen.”

“Dean,” she says. She nods at Sam. “Late night, sweetie?”

Leaning his arms on the bar, Sam gives a nod back and says, “Possession out in Worthington.”

Ellen nods again and uncaps two beers, sliding them down the counter. Dean grabs at one of the slippery bottles and takes a fast and greedy gulp with Sam quickly stealing a sip of his brother’s. They easily pass the beer back and forth, before Sam starts working on his own. 

“What’s she doing up so late?” Dean asks, pointing at Robin with the end of his now half-drunk bottle. A couple of drops of condensation roll onto his fingertips, so he wipes his hand on the front of his shirt. Now he and Jo have matching, wet stains. “Thought you were working out a schedule.”

“She cranky and teething.” Jo holds up the washcloth like it’s proof. “Hopefully she’ll tire herself out soon.”

“She’s teething? Really?”

“Yeah. Got two coming in on the bottom.” 

Dean leans closer as Jo gently pulls on Robin’s lower lip to show him the small pinpricks of white poking up from pink gums. He nods in a way that looks like approval and then goes back to his beer. Sam takes the slow pause in the conversation to reach over and tickle his fingers against Robin’s bare feet. She kicks her legs in response and makes a sort of happy gurgling sound with a bubble of spit popping on her open lips. Jo looks up at Sam pleadingly and there’s a question that she doesn’t ask, but when he nods, Jo happily shifts Robin into his arms.

“Thanks,” she says. 

“No problem.” He runs a large and warm hand over Robin’s back, holding her tight against his chest. “Hey, baby. Hi.”

From the moment Sam saw her, he’s called her nothing but ‘baby’, so Dean’s pretty sure that the kid is going to grow up with an identity crisis. Of course, his own wallet is stuffed with six credit cards, three driver’s licenses, and a variety of business cards and they all have different names with different typefaces printed on their fronts, so that might be an unfair observation. Maybe his kid is just fucked either way.

Jo tiredly slumps onto the stool next to Dean and rests her chin in her palm. She blinks in that sort of unfocused way that people do when they’re low on sleep and Dean rubs a hand over her shoulder. A sigh pushes out of her mouth. Robin gurgles again and Sam smiles.

“You want her, Sam? I could give you a hell of a deal.”

Sam laughs as Robin clamps her gummy mouth, now starting to get sharp with teeth, around two of his fingers. He plucks the cloth from Jo’s hand as a replacement. “Oh, yeah? How much?” 

Yawning, Jo covers her mouth with the back of her hand. “Free. How does that sound?”

“You auctioning off our daughter?” Dean asks.

She tries to feign a look of shock, but her open lips quickly dissolve into another yawn, so she just shrugs.

“Not even auctioning her off,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Giving her away.”   

“Well, c’mon. At least try and make a couple bucks out of it.” Dean laughs. “I mean, the kid’s gotta be good for something. Right?”

“I was figuring when she got old enough, you’d just teach her to hustle pool and I’d let her in on a few card tips. And then we could travel the country like a family of bandits.”

That actually sounds kind of right up his alley, right from hustling and down to the word family, so Dean smiles and says, “Sam could drive. Awesome.”

“You sure you want Sam driving?”

Jo quirks an eyebrow and Dean twists his lips around the thought, thinks about all the times that Sam has jumped the curb or busted a headlight or, you know, gotten t-boned by a semi, and then shakes his head. He takes another sip of his beer.

“Nah, you’re right. I’ll drive.” 

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Don’t listen to your parents, baby. They’re both borderline crazy.”

“Borderline?” Dean asks through a mouthful of beer before swallowing. “I don’t do anything half ass. It’s full on or nothing.” 

“Oh, that’s better,” Sam says with a small nod, carefully sitting down at the bar and shifting Robin into the crook of his arm. She gets a fistful of his shirt in her small hand and a soft and whispery sigh passes through her nose. “I think she’s falling asleep.”

Ellen grabs a few empties from the other side of the counter and dumps them into the trash can. “Most nights, goes out like a light.” She looks at Jo. “Wish you went down that easy.”

Dean spares everyone the joke about how Jo actually does go down that easy and that’s why they have a baby in the first place. He bets that Ellen would thank him for keeping his mouth shut. 

“You know, she looks just like you, Jo,” Sam tells her, lifting his eyes from Robin to Jo and then back again. Both of them are all full lips and pale skin and pink cheeks and big brown eyes. “It’s kind of weird.”

Smiling, Jo runs the backs of her fingers over one of Robin’s round and flushed cheeks, checking for signs of a fever maybe, then tugs at the tiny shirt that’s pulled up around Robin’s stomach and rubs small and comforting circles through the cotton. Dean still isn’t sure how she knows how to do all of that mom kind of stuff. He guesses that Ellen probably taught her.

“She might look like me. But she’s just like her Daddy.” 

“Yeah?” Dean asks. And he can’t stop the proud sort of grin that pulls at his lips. “You think?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jo says with a smirk hidden somewhere in her voice. “She sleeps more than half the day and only gets up when she wants something. Usually my breasts.”

Dean snorts through his grin. “I’m more of an ass man.” 

“Never would’ve guessed.” Jo gives another sleepy blink and scratches at a spot below her eye. Standing up slowly, she eases Robin out of Sam’s arms. Robin only fusses a little, small little whimpers that seem to melt into snores. “I’m gonna put her to bed and then try and get some sleep.” Jo perks her eyebrows at Dean. “You coming?” 

“Yeah, soon.” He reaches his mouth up to hers in a soft kiss. “Night.”

She smiles shyly. “Night.”

 

 

 

 

Around six or seven the morning (her alarm clock is broken, so she’s not sure, really) Jo can hear the heavy and creaking footsteps on the floorboards. She rubs a hand over her eyes and tries to ignore the grit that sticks to her lashes and the sting of the morning sunrise. She was up just a couple of hours ago lulling Robin back to sleep, but she doesn’t think that she heard her cry this time.

“She need to be changed?” Jo asks Dean. Her voice sounds rough and dry, so she clears her throat. “Diapers are by the bathroom.” 

“No, no. She’s still out.” He’s talking and moving quietly, but then stops to bend down and press his lips to her hair. “Sammy and me are taking off. Newcastle. Poltergeist, we think.” 

Jo half-sits up, still groggy with sleep. “You’re leaving now? You barely spent the night.” 

“I’ll be back soon,” he says, smiling apologetically.

“Be careful.”

The smile falls from his face, replaced by a frown. He gets why she worries about him, but she did the job too and he figures that she should know how it is. You’re always on the move. You stop too long and someone dies.

Jo touches her hand to his cheek, her thumb pressed awkwardly against the bridge of his nose. And it feels intimate in a way that the two of them fucking just isn’t.

“Dean?”

Her forehead crinkles and for a small moment he thinks that she might cry. The last time Jo cried, she sliced her hand open on a broken beer bottle. And even then, it was only a brief sting of tears that barely touched her cheeks. Girls crying have always made Dean feel uncomfortable, because he can never seem to find the right thing to say. (If he thinks about, girls crying are really more of Sam’s territory. It’s why the kid got laid so much in high school.)

So Dean just sighs and says, “I’ll be careful, Jo.”

“No.” She shakes her head and pushes her hair off of her face. “Yeah, no. I know. It’s just—” 

“I promise, okay?”

 

 

 

 

When she doesn’t hear from them for almost two weeks, Jo calls. She frowns at the pre-recorded message of Dean’s falsely cheerful voice and a sick feeling starts creeping up from her toes and settles in her legs, making them wobble. She sits down and chews on her thumbnail.

“Hey. It’s me. Gimme a call back when you get a chance, okay?” She breathes in deeply, then, “Miss you.”

 

 

 

 

Sam calls her a few hours later.

“Hey, Jo. There was a—” He stops and there’s an uncomfortable pause. She can hear a sharp whistle as Sam takes a hurried gulp of air. “We’re at Bobby’s. You should come down.”

Her face feels cold and she stupidly looks to the floor to see if the blood that’s no longer coloring her cheeks is now pooled at her feet. Almost surprisingly, it’s not. She sighs into her fist and then presses her closed hand to her forehead. 

“How bad, Sam?” she asks.

“He’s okay. Lost a lot of blood,” he tells her. “Been in and out of consciousness. But, uh—he asked for you. And Robin. Probably not a good idea for him to make the trip, though. You know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll drive out tonight.”

 

 

 

 

Driving over state lines with a teething baby is not something Jo recommends. The car windows are rolled down an inch or two and warm air hits her face, but the sky is getting dark and threatens rain. She finds some Springsteen on the radio and Robin lets out a loud and shrieking scream. 

Only three hundred miles to go.

She can’t stop thinking about Dean dying.

Jo doesn’t recommend getting involved with hunters either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean tucks a second lumpy pillow underneath his head and half-sits up with his neck craned towards the door. When Jo walks in with Robin his belly starts to warm inside and he smiles. She says hi to Sam first, pressing her lips to his cheek in a quick kiss and then holds up a tired and almost cranky looking Robin.

“Hey, baby.” Sam touches his finger to her nose and her face crumples—the first warning sign of what’s sure to be an ear-piercingly loud cry. The kid certainly has a set of impressive lungs on her, if nothing else.

“She’s had a long couple of days,” Jo says, sounding like she’s apologizing. She lightly bounces the baby on her hip and kisses the top of her head and whispers nonsense like, “Who’s gonna be a good girl for her Uncle Sam, huh? Who’s Mama’s good girl? Is it you? Yes, it is.”

Sam scoops Robin out of Jo’s arms with surprisingly little fanfare and when Jo looks at the two of them she almost seems sad, but Dean doesn’t know why.

“How is he?” she asks.

“He’s uh—” Sam stops and holds Robin a bit tighter, his lips pressed together like he’s not sure what to say. “It was close, Jo.”

She pulls some hair from her eyes and then fists her hands on her hips and her teeth dig deep into her lower lip. “Son of a bitch.”

Dean forces himself higher against the arm of the sofa. His head starts screaming in pain and he has to close his eyes for a second or two as the room starts to blur and spin. He rubs at his closed eyes and then slowly opens them again and says, “Hey, bring the kid here.”

Both Sam and Jo turn to look at him. Jo gives a slow and unsure smile, and then pulls more hair from her face, like it’s some sort of tic that she’s developed. Robin gets passed through hands again, back to Jo, and she lets out small and hiccup-y sigh and sucks her thumb into her mouth.

“You’re up,” Sam says with a small shake of his head. His hands find his pockets and he grins with only the right side of his mouth turned up, but it’s still a grin and not a smirk, because Sammy never did learn to smirk properly. “Welcome back to the land of the living, man.” 

Dean kind of smiles and croaks out a dry, “Thanks.”

“You need anything?”

 “Just my girls,” he says. His smile turns a bit pained when he readjusts his position, but he just grunts out a low, “Missed you guys.”

Jo nods and sits herself on the middle of the sofa, so her thigh presses against his. She looks back at Sam with a worried and brittle smile and Sam gives her his own worried smile back before he ducks into the hallway. Dean watches as Robin grabs onto Jo’s wrist and starts to absently chew on the sleeve of her shirt and then reaches his hand over to touch the tips of his fingers to Robin’s forehead, gently stroking her hair. 

“She doing okay?” he asks.

Jo shrugs and bites her lip again. “Yeah, she’s good. Tired, though. Both of us.”

Dean leans back against the pillows and heaves out a labored breath—one hand pressed heavily against his chest and the other still lightly resting on the top of Robin’s head as he slowly combs his fingers through her hair. Jo looks at him with a frown.

“I’m fine, Jo. Just a bump on the head and Bobby stitched me up alright,” he says and then kind of sighs. “You shouldn’t listen to everything Sammy says. The kid’s a drama queen. Remember when he thought there was a demon war and the world was ending? C’mon.”

“Don’t do that.” She gives a sudden shake of her head. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“Oh, I’m being an asshole?” He lets out a choky laugh. “Really?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.” 

Jo’s eyes suddenly fill with tears and she quickly wipes at her wet cheeks and nose with the heel of her palm. Dean swallows hard. Fucking girls crying.

“You have responsibilities now, Dean. I mean, God. You’ve got a daughter who’s going to grow up to depend on you. She’s gonna need you to be there. And she’s gonna need you to love her.” 

“Are you saying I don’t love my own kid?” he asks.

Dean’s been accused of an entire fuck ton of horrible things in his life (and, yeah, maybe some of them were even true), but no one’s ever accused him of not loving his family. Jo just stares back at him with sad and wide and watery eyes.

“I know you love her,” she tells him.

Robin lets out a loud squeal and Jo rubs her hand over the top of her head, moving her thin fingers through the curls, but when her fingers brush against Dean’s, it’s as if the sudden contact is too much and she drops her hand.

With another shrug, Jo continues, “I just think that you need to think about how things are right now. You almost died. And me dealing with that?” She sucks back a shaky breath and looks at the other room where Sam is. “Well, I don’t know how I’d deal. But her? She shouldn’t have to.”

“So, I won’t die.” His mouth twists into a light smirk. “Simple as that, sweetheart.” 

“This isn’t a joke, Dean.” 

He frowns now. “And I ain’t really laughing. Jesus, Jo. What the hell do you want from me?”

“I want you to be there for her. That’s all. I want you to be there for her all of the time or none of the time.”

“You asking me to choose?” he asks. His chest rumbles with a low cough, but he keeps on, “Because when I’m hunting? That’s me protecting my kid the only way I know how. That is me being there for her all of time.”

“And you’re gonna die doing it,” she says, sadly. She stands up, holding Robin close to her chest. “And I can’t watch that happen. Neither can she.”

“Jo, c’mon. This is total bullshit and you know it.”

“How’d you feel when John died?” she asks. He doesn’t give an answer and she doesn’t wait for one, because, really, even she knows that it was a cheap shot, so she just shakes her head softly. “I remember what it was like when my dad died and maybe it is bullshit to ask you, but if I can make it so she doesn’t have to ever feel the way that I felt, then that’s it.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, and his voice is too harsh and too bitter. “That’s it.”

“Yeah. You’re really not being an asshole at all.”

She turns and walks towards the kitchen and Dean isn’t sure that he’d stop her even if he could.

 

 

 

 

That night, she sleeps with her back turned to him. Bobby fixed them up a room on the main floor, with a hand-stitched quilt folded at their feet and a bassinet, which Sam slept in when he was a baby, right beside the bed.

Dean moves a hank of hair off of Jo’s neck and holds his thumb there, waiting. She scoots away from him with an angry wiggle of her hips.

“What? Are you gonna stay mad at me forever?” he asks. 

“Maybe,” she says.

“Jo—”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now, Dean. I just drove for almost an entire day to find out that you’re a giant prick with a death wish.” 

“Hey,” he says softly. He reaches for her again, grabs at her arm before she gets a chance to pull away. “You already knew that I was a giant prick with a death wish. At this point in the game, that should really be a non-issue, don’t you think?” 

She turns around suddenly and Dean almost gets an elbow in his face.

“I can’t believe you’re still joking about this,” she says in a furious sort of whisper. ”That’s the problem, Dean. You can’t take this seriously.” Jo flops onto her back and is quiet for a minute or two, staring up at the cracked ceiling and not blinking. And then, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Yeah, me either,” Dean agrees. He slides an arm over her pillow, fingers dropping to the top of her head and stroking her hair. He smiles. “Move closer. I need your body warmth. I lost a lot of blood, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she says. She sounds unsure and takes a deep breath before continuing, “I mean that I just can’t do any of it anymore, Dean. I can’t do us anymore and I can’t do you and I can’t do family. I just can’t, okay?”

“You can’t just quit family, Jo. If you could, I would’ve gotten rid of Sammy years ago.”

“I’m serious, Dean. I can’t do it. I can’t play war widow and I can’t be the one to tell Robin that her daddy isn’t coming home because he’s gone off hunting all the time, or worse that you’re just not coming home at all.”

“Then make Sam tell her.” 

“ _Dean_.”

“Jesus. What the hell happened to you, Jo? You used to want this. You used to want hunting and the road.”

“Yeah, I did,” she agrees.

“So?” he challenges.

Jo stares at her hands and uncertainly licks her lips. Her eyes flick back up the ceiling and Dean can tell that she’s carefully thinking about her answer. “So, I don’t know what happened. Having a baby happened, I guess. With Robin, I don’t want that anymore. I just don’t. Priorities change, Dean. People change.”

Dean’s whole body stiffens at the tone in her voice, defeated and angry and sad. And he just _knows_. He sighs and says, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Can I still come around?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not fair,” he tells her.

“Yeah, I know.” She pulls the sheets up high around her chin and doesn’t look at him. “And maybe it’s selfish—”

He cuts her off with a laugh. “Maybe? Damn fucking right it’s selfish.”

“Fine,” she says. She lifts one hand up to her eyes, rubbing out the tears. “I don’t want you die. I’m selfish.”

“Seriously?” 

“Dean,” she says again, “I _can’t_.” 

“Yeah, I heard you the first time.”

“How about a month and we’ll see how it goes?” she asks. “Maybe if we had some time—” 

But Dean is already pulling back the quilt, reaching for a pair of dirty jeans off of the floor. Standing, he says, “Well, then I’ll make it real simple for you Jo, okay? Take all the time you need.”

 

 

 

 

 

Jo leaves early in the morning. She says goodbye to both Bobby and Sam. She smiles sadly at Dean. Robin cries. And then his girls are gone.  

 

 

 

 

“So, what? You’re just never gonna see her again?” Sam asks.

He’s sitting on the arm of the sofa with his hands on his knees and looking down at Dean with something that might be either confusion or disappointment. Maybe it’s both. Bobby is standing next to him, wearing a matching look.

“Hey, if that’s what Jo wants, well then I ain’t gonna chase her down and stop her.”

“Dean, this is by far the most stupid thing that you’ve ever done. And there is a long fucking list of stupid things that you’ve done, so that’s saying something,” Sam tells him, shaking his head. 

“What do you want me to do, Sammy? Huh?” Dean asks, his voice edged with frustration. “If she doesn’t want me in their life, then I won’t be. Not like I wanted any of this in the first place, right?” 

“And what about now?”

“Now is the same as then. I guess. I don’t know.”

“Dean, c’mon.”

“Listen, Sammy. She said she can’t. She can’t do it. Can’t do family. And I’m not gonna force her. So, it’s just me and you again. Okay? Got it?”

“And you’re not gonna miss her?” he asks quietly. “Miss them?”

“Sam,” Dean says, warning.

 Sam nods. “Yeah, me too.”

“Boy,” Bobby says, voice gruff and low, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Dean grunts. “I ain’t doing anything.” 

“You’re playing with fire, is what you’re doing,” Bobby answers. 

“Well, been burned more than once,” he says with a smile. “Think I can handle it.”

 


End file.
